Since that sinkhole opened, I wonder if an entire part of Florida could sink?

If I was living there I would be spooked. I read last night that there was an earthquake where the ex-pope is staying. First the lightning strike and
now a quake. Wonder if God is telling him something. I read of Locust swarms this morning in Cairo. Interesting times we are living in.

The fire globes that my husband and I saw were all exactly the same size, they did NOT hover the slightest. They moved together in perfect
synchronization. They went in a straight line (20 or more - not a few) and turned on a dime and continued exactly straight again. It was like watching
the blue angels in an air show only these were of a different shape. The globes you showed on tv moved all around. The lanterns you showed in the shop
were a different shape and looked flimsy and I doubt they could achieve the level of movement that we saw. Nice try lantern salesman and scoffers, but
you didn't see what we saw and I'm so sorry my camera abilities were not up to par. Maybe if I am lucky and see them again I will have better camera
skills and you will see the same accuracy of the flights that we saw.

I saw exactly what Gwen saw, they did look like they came from the pier. I saw them last night around 7. No sound, orange globes, fast, followed same
patter and turned to fly out into the ocean. Cool if those were lanterns, seems like a costly hobby.

I live in Holiday and this happens all the time, it's due to subsonic noise waves. There are military Jets in the gulf, and they are moving over
the speed of sound and causing sonic booms, however the audible waves above 20 Hz are too far away to be audible but the subsonic waves below 20 Hz
still hit the structures and make windows and doors shake.

I happen to Live in Collier county Florida. I was visiting my parents who also Live here. We were sitting in the living room approximately 11:00 a.m.
Sunday morning, we were discussing the 3000 new homes they are preparin to build within the 10 surrounding miles. The first shaking lasted approx. 15
secs. It was followed very shortly thereafter, less than 30 sec. by another round of shaking that lasted about 7-10 sec. My mother then
commented......"they are not suppossed to be blasting this time of year let alone on Sunday". It seems the developers are getting an early start to
construction season which typically runs 1 May thru 31 October. They are also doing an awful lot of burning. The County is turning a blind eye to all
of this because things have been very down in the area for the 7 years I have lived here. So, yes, there absolutely was shaking. It was a low rumble,
and obviously underground. However, there is a simple explanation for it. They are also going to start an overpass (flyover) for the traffic the new
homes will create. Hope this helps.

Note that is UTC time you are seeing, and eastern standard = UTC time minus 5 hours.

Now I am trying to download the data to further analyze it, but having no luck because, well...I'd rather not go into it. But if I can get the data I
can run it through spectrum analysis to further confirm that while it may not be seismic, the frequencies could reside in the 8 to 20 Hz range- which
are plenty enough to shake a house- if the house's resonant frequency responded to the vibrations. And that would also possibly explain why it was not
reported as a quake, because it was more localized, and thus not a "declared" network event, which usually takes three stations or more to show it.

So anyway, that's a start... But without seeing spectrum on those bumps, can't be sure of much other than what I've reported...

I certainly don't doubt that there could possibly be a whole lot more to this story than what I posted. Just a couple of afterthoughts........ First,
I have been here in Collier County a little over 7 years. I lived 4 doors down from my parents (where I was witness to the shaking) before moving
about 12 miles to the beach. I never felt any shaking like happened on Sunday while living there. I have never felt any shaking on the Beach where I
live now. It very well could have been construction as my Mother casually mentioned, or it could have been something much deeper. I felt compelled to
post simply because I was there and had a firsthand account of "the event". As far as the sinkhole having any relation, I certainly can't speculate
on that. However, the sinkhole was in Tampa, or more directly a suburb of Tampa and that is about 165 miles from Naples (Collier County). May be a bit
of a stretch to connect the two. BTW, enjoying the thread since it is in my backyard. Cheers all!

Huh, I haven't heard a peep on my Tampa news about this. To be honest, it's not that it's 150+ mile south, it's that it's an area nobody really
gives a damn about (Collier, Lee counties) Pretty much a "of local interest only" deal, I guess.
I'm betting a sinkhole will open up, probably in the very near future (a thousand pardons, haven't read the article yet if they touched on that)
Florida sits on limestone, and is saturated with water (low water tables) and surrounded by it on 3 sides. You're going to have spots fall out
from under you with such an easily eroded stone under us. I've yet to have any personal experience with sinkholes in my life down here, but I know
that the longer I live here, the more likely it is that I will travel on a roadway compromised by one, or visit/live in a home threatened by one.
It's like one of the prerequisites for living down here---it's going to happen some day.

Thanks to those who offered their opinion about the comment I posted.
It didn't sound quite right to me either, so hearing from all of you was helpful.
Living in Florida about an hour and a half away from Tampa, the only booms and shakes I ever feel and hear is when they're bombing in the Ocala
National Forest, which is about an hour north of me. There's supposed to be a testing range out there. Yet, there have been some strange sounds I've
heard while visiting in central Florida right by the University. Every so often, very rhythmic booms can be heard. They sound like three cannon
blasts, then all goes quiet for a few minutes until you hear the succession again. I've heard it go on for about two hours, then just stops. Very
strange. I've never felt any shaking like what is being described in this story.
Edit to Add: The booms I'm describing usually happen on the weekends late in the afternoon to early evening.

Ok, it took forever, but I finally was able to get the raw data from the TWO closest stations to this event. To my surprise:

1) The frequency content of the first station I mentioned in my above post was mostly centered between about 3 and 8 Hz. I thought it would be higher
than that.

2) The second station did not show it at all.

From these observations I can pretty well conclude that:
1) It was a very localized event

2) It was likely NOT seismic, although it might be possible if it was a VERY shallow event, less than .5 km deep. This does leave open the possibility
of a shallow sinkhole forming, or shallow earth movement.

3) Possible distant sonic boom, whose audible frequencies had dissipated enough to only leave a very low frequency component at that long distance-
strong enough to excite resonance modes in the house.

4) Possible distant construction equipment making a loud noise, but because of the distance, the higher frequencies in the audible range were
attenuated, again, leaving only the low, inaudible frequency components which were strong enough to still cause brief shaking.

It is also possible that due to that particular area's rock strata composition that it could amplify and/or transmit particular frequencies more than
other areas do.

So in other words, I wouldn't worry about it too much unless it becomes persistent.

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